Women Hold the Key to the 2014 Midterm Elections – The Guardian

By Nancy L. Cohen, Jul. 23, 2013

Will Republicans win control of the US Senate in the 2014 midterm elections? Election analysts now think the GOP has even odds of picking up the six seats needed to win the majority.

No sweat! All Republicans have to do is defeat an incumbent woman Democrat in North Carolina, land of omnibus motorcycle-and-abortion bills, where the GOP governor and legislature are less popular than pro-abortion rights protesters. Republicans just have to hold Georgia, where one candidate thinks Todd Akin was “partially right” — “We tell infertile couples all the time … don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.” What could possibly go wrong?

Clearly, Democrats shouldn’t hit the panic button just yet. Women can rescue the party – again – if Democrats play their hand right.

In 2012, women voters favored Obama by a 10pt margin – and helped secure the Senate for Democrats. (Women’s votes made the difference in Democratic Senate victories in Indiana, Wisconsin, and Florida.) Back in 2010, however, dissatisfied by the snail’s pace of change, feeling ignored by Tea Party-distracted Democrats, millions of women who had voted for Obama in 2008 stayed home.

In polarized America, everything depends on who votes and who doesn’t. Midterm elections are low participation affairs, especially among members of the rising American electorate of unmarried women, African Americans, Latinos, and the young. The new political demographic leans Democratic– but what will take to get women to the polls in 2014? Read the full article at the Guardian